Chester County Private Ambulance Business Owner Sentenced to 80 Months in Prison for Transportation of Child Pornography

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 8, 2012

WILMINGTON, Del. - Jason Haldeman, age 38, of Landenberg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced yesterday afternoon to 80 months in federal prison for transportation of child pornography via an online peer-to-peer network. Haldeman also was sentenced to five years of supervised release following his prison sentence. He also will be required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction in which he lives, works, or attends school.

Haldeman, who is the owner and operator of Stat Care Ambulance Service, Inc., in West Grove, Pennsylvania, was identified by agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security during an online investigation into a computer network devoted to trading images of child pornography. During that investigation, an undercover agent located in Delaware downloaded 74 files depicting child pornography that Haldeman had made available to network members.

Law enforcement agents arrested Haldeman and executed search warrants at his Landenberg residence and West Grove, Pennsylvania office on January 20, 2011. Upon entering Haldeman’s private office at his business, agents found a computer logged into the computer network previously identified during the investigation. On this computer were approximately 16,000 files, including approximately 3,000 movies, depicting child pornography available for download by approximately 150 other network members. The vast majority of these images and movies depicted prepubescent and teenage boys and girls engaged in sex acts with other boys or adult males or posing lasciviously.

During the post-arrest investigation, federal agents learned that Haldeman had been accused of molesting two boys, one age eight and the other age twelve, when Haldeman was a teenager. The men had reported the abuse to the Pennsylvania State Police in 1998, but no charges resulted at that time. In sentencing Haldeman, United States District Judge Richard G. Andrews found the reports of Haldeman’s physical sexual abuse suffered by these now adult men to be credible, and relied upon them in imposing sentence. In written submissions and statements made in court, the government also noted that over twenty years after his physical sexual abuse of these boys, Haldeman’s child pornography collection and online conversations with other child sex offenders remained focused on images of the same types of sexual abuse and victims of the same age as the boys he abused.

Following the sentencing hearing, United States Attorney Charles M. Oberly, III stated,
“This case is another example of the outstanding work being done by the Department of Homeland Security to identify and apprehend those who use the Internet to traffic in images of child sexual abuse and to network with other child sex offenders. I commend the agents for their excellent work in uncovering Mr. Haldeman’s crimes against children – both past and present.”

"All children have an absolute right to grow up free from the fear of being sexually exploited," said John P. Kelleghan, special agent in charge of HSI Philadelphia. "While this sentence cannot repair the permanent damage done to the children depicted in these images, it should serve as a warning to those who engage in this behavior: HSI and our partners will be relentless in our pursuit of online predators."

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